Google DeepMind Unionization Talks Are Inauspicious

Conversations between Google DeepMind and its staff based in London at the possibility of cooperation have stumbled this week, after initial negotiations left union representatives feeling they had wasted their time, WIRED has learned.

In May, DeepMind employees he asked Google to recognize the Communication Workers Union and Unite the Union as other delegates. The company later rejected the request, but agreed to participate in negotiations initiated by a third party.

The first meeting on Wednesday was held with company managers, DeepMind employees who were involved in the promotion of cooperation, third-party litigation, and representatives of DeepMind HR. Those promoting the partnership were disappointed by DeepMind’s lack of leadership.

John Chadfield, chief executive of the CWU, said: “The issue of identifying people who were not present by senior management at the opening is a sign that the company is not acting in good faith. “The negotiations have stalled at an early stage.”

DeepMind denies that negotiations have stopped. “The first step in the process is to define who the organizations want to represent and the parties have agreed on what they can do to do that,” said Al Verney, a spokesperson for Google DeepMind. Eligible representatives attended the first meeting.

At the meeting, a DeepMind employee read a draft letter on behalf of colleagues supporting the deal, reviewed by WIRED. “Instead of discussing our concerns with our colleagues, Google DeepMind employees were treated as a problem that was passed to HR,” the letter said. The employee reading the statement was interrupted twice by DeepMind HR representatives, according to multiple sources with knowledge of the meeting.

The letter goes on to say that Google tried to end discussions between DeepMind employees and prevent disagreements, by closing or reorganizing internal chat rooms, and preventing employees from responding to company-wide communications related to the deal. Employees who wanted to dance around the restrictions were “reprimanded” by HR, the letter says.

“The intent was to threaten,” said the DeepMind employee who wrote the letter, who asked not to be identified because he is not authorized to speak to the media. “These are well-established ways to destroy a partnership.”

“We will continue to improve in … the process and have open discussions with employees,” Verney says. “On matters outside of this, we continue to provide employees with a variety of options and opportunities to discuss their ideas.”

The push to join DeepMind began in February 2025, when Google’s parent company Alphabet. he bailed out not using AI for purposes such as tool design and analysis from its behavioral guidelines, WIRED previously reported.

“These principles were a big part of why I joined DeepMind,” says a DeepMind executive, who asked not to be identified for the same reasons. “We just got rid of them all.”